Sorry Véro that does rather look as though it was directed at me, care to expand or clarify?
Paul - surely @vero was referring to the post a couple above yours with a photo of her bete noir (sorry can’t find accents)? You know how much she appreciates Farage…
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Yes, well, he certainly is a ghastly little spiv 
ISTR doing a post on that way back.
If you can’t type them directly you can use the various HTML codes, which actually aren’t that difficult to remember or guess at - eg é = é (the code is everything from the & to the ; inclusive)
So bête noir can be written as “bête noir”
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Thank you very much for that, Paul 
I’d forgotten all my HTML… but that helps a lot!
Hmmm - bête noir. Will experiment
That thread covered text formatting rather than diacritics.
The one covering accented characters was here
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Thanks Graham and Paul - very kind of you!
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Sorry Paul, apologies for the unwitting ambiguity, OF COURSE I meant that loather farage!
ps @AngelaR it is always bête noire even referring to someone masculine because bête is feminine.
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Thanks @vero - duly noted 
(Just about to have one of my two weekly French lessons so I’d better get my head in the right place!)
Worzel Gummidge style? 
He was always missing his head I recall…
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so here we go…a future of uk and EU doing nothing but squabbling, crocodile tears with “our partners in European”…Irish border, Vaccine supply, fishing, financial reprocity, foreign policy…we love Indo Pacific region not sclerotic EU.
Welcome to what we are going to have to live with !
You need one of these John
Lidl sell them at a really great price…
on the other hand… you could always have a look a buster…
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It is really worrying for us though. For a year or two at least the demonisation of the EU that was a big part of the brexit campaign, and actually led to the selection of many Tory MPs, and self-selection of Tory party membership, will doubtless continue. Scapegoating works - there are votes in it - and plenty of opportunities for it arising out of the running sore in Ireland, etc.
It will, I have no doubt, all turn around eventually - but how will the French public (or some of them) react to the friction in the short term? Increase in anti-Brit feeling?
I believe the way to counter that is to double the effort to speak French and absorb more in to the French way of life. I think you have already done (are doing) that Geof.
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I completely agree with that, Graham. I have never really encountered any anti-Brit feeling here, although I may just be lucky I suppose, but increasing one’s level of French and becoming inculturated is the only way forward. When we were able to join the local choir, it made a massive difference to our understanding of how that aspect at least of society worked here and we were met with enormous kindness. From everything I’ve read from Geof on here, I am sure he is so much further down that road than I am, but we’re working on it 
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Which is so difficult to do at the moment as we only dare venture out of the house twice a week.
Once for essential shopping, and once for French lessons.
I’ve personally never encountered any anti-Brit feeling here either - and have encountered the opposite many times - both French people going out of their way to make us feel welcome, and the odd real anglophile.
There were a couple of minor incidents with the kids when they were at school here though, so there are (of course) some anti-Brit feelings around - no doubt in a small minority of particularly insecure French people - but if the brexit debate proved one thing it is that some people can’t distinguish between loving your country and hating foreigners.
I suppose it depends where you live in France. There are examples of anti-Brit feeling in areas where the locals felt they were being “swamped” by foreigners. And that was well before Brexit. The south of the country can be particularly anti “immigrant” - that includes ANYONE who isn’t French, and not just British people (but especially if you have a north African heritage). I don’t think the French are any different to the British in that respect.
Edit: I left France in 2017 - so whether the situation has changed post brexit I couldn’t say. I do recall that our local baker laughingly refused to give me his sourdough recipe as “I didn’t want to be european anymore”! Given I had never expressed an opinion to him about politics, perhaps there is an perception that the British do wish to remain apart - and nothing could be further from the truth.
Yes indeed it is - and this is so very frustrating! Heaven knows what will happen to our choir 
I so wish this wasn’t true…
However, I am carefully not getting involved in political discussion as I don’t cope with it and have to back off quickly. Some of the rest of you are a lot more robust